I would write a script that would check for connectivity to the internet over the ethernet port for internet. If your slackware router is always connected, and communicating, with the satellite modem, though not always passing real internet traffic, you could leave the interface 'up'. From there, you could write a simple ping-check type script that would ping the satellite gateway, which would only be visible when the dish is communicating to the NOC. For example: if ping -I eth0 xx.xx.xx.xx is successful then ip route del default via xx.xx.xx.xx dev ppp0 ip route add default via xx.xx.xx.xx dev eth0 else ip route del default via xx.xx.xx.xx dev eth0 ip route add default via xx.xx.xx.xx dev ppp0 otherwise, if eth0 is not always talking to the modem (ethernet), then you could use ethtool to check for ethernet connectivity before trying to ping, i.e. if (ethtool eth0 | grep 'Link detected: ') == 'yes' then ip addr add xx.xx.xx.xx/xx brd + dev eth0 and whatever routes you need to get the satellite gateway. then run the ping script above. hope i helped a little, -Randy _______________________________________________ LARTC mailing list LARTC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://mailman.ds9a.nl/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lartc